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Marc Cain, the Columbus firefighter who was accused of having sex in a fire station, was fired
yesterday.

Mitchell J. Brown, the city’s director of public safety, signed the order terminating Cain’s
employment on Thursday. Cain was given the report yesterday morning.

The report says the city fired Cain, who has been with the department for 24 years, for “
dishonesty, insubordination and failure of good behavior.”

Cain had sex with the same woman several times in Station 17 on the Hilltop between September
2011 and April 2013, often during his shift or late at night, the report says, violating department
policy. It says he lied about doing so and continued to defy orders from his superiors to stop.

The report also states he sent a picture of his genitals to the woman from his cellphone while
he was on duty. Cain, 48, was married when he began the affair with the woman, who was 18 when it
began.

Cain, who has appealed Brown’s decision to the city’s Civil Service Commission, also allowed the
woman to ride on station ambulances and firetrucks against policy, the report says Brown’s firing
was recommended by Columbus Fire Chief Gregory A. Paxton after a six-month investigation that
concluded at the end of January.

The investigation implicated some of Cain’s superiors in a potential cover-up. On Tuesday,
TheDispatch reported that Battalion Chief Gerald C. Birkhimer likely will be suspended
for six weeks and demoted for contributing to the cover-up.

Also yesterday, John C. Wilt, a Columbus fire captain who has been with the department for 29
years, left the division.

It is unclear whether Wilt, who was investigated in 2012 in the disappearance of $5,000 from a
fire department fund, resigned or retired. In a letter to the city, Wilt wrote that he was
retiring, effective on Monday.

Paxton had recommended that Wilt be suspended and demoted, said Amanda Ford, spokeswoman for the
city’s Department of Public Safety. Brown had been expected to rule soon on that discipline, she
said, but now that Wilt is retiring, he will not rule.

Will Drabold is a fellow in Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism Statehouse News
Bureau.